Posted on 09/06/2016 3:57:16 PM PDT by NYer
.- Young Catholics are leaving the faith at an early age – sometimes before the age of 10 – and their reasons are deeper than being “bored at Mass,” the author of a new report claims.
“Those that are leaving for no religion – and a pretty big component of them saying they are atheist or agnostic – it turns out that when you probe a bit more deeply and you allow them to talk in their own words, that they are bringing up things that are related to science and a need for evidence and a need for proof,” said Dr. Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
“It’s almost a crisis in faith,” he told CNA. “In the whole concept of faith, this is a generation that is struggling with faith in ways that we haven’t seen in previous generations.”
Gray recently published the results of two national studies by CARA – which conducts social science research about the Church -- in the publication Our Sunday Visitor. One of the surveys was of those who were raised Catholic but no longer identified as Catholic, ages 15 to 25. The second survey was of self-identified Catholics age 18 and over.
In exploring why young Catholics were choosing to leave the faith, he noted “an emerging profile” of youth who say they find the faith “incompatible with what they are learning in high school or at the university level.” In a perceived battle between the Catholic Church and science, the Church is losing.
And it is losing Catholics at a young age. “The interviews with youth and young adults who had left the Catholic Faith revealed that the typical age for this decision to leave was made at 13,” Gray wrote. “Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed, 63 percent, said they stopped being Catholic between the ages of 10 and 17. Another 23 percent say they left the Faith before the age of 10.”
Of those who had left the faith, “only 13 percent said they were ever likely to return to the Catholic Church,” Gray wrote. And “absent any big changes in their life,” he said to CNA, they “are probably not coming back.”
The most common reason given for leaving the Catholic faith, by one in five respondents, was they stopped believing in God or religion. This was evidence of a “desire among some of them for proof, for evidence of what they’re learning about their religion and about God,” Gray said.
It’s a trend in the popular culture to see atheism as “smart” and the faith as “a fairy tale,” he said.
“And I think the Church needs to come to terms with this as an issue of popular culture,” he continued. “I think the Church perhaps needs to better address its history and its relationship to science.”
One reason for this might be the compartmentalization of faith and education, where youth may go to Mass once a week but spend the rest of their week learning how the faith is “dumb,” he noted.
In contrast, if students are taught evolution and the Big Bang theory at the same school where they learn religion, and they are taught by people with religious convictions, then “you’re kind of shown that there’s not conflicts between those, and you understand the Church and Church history and its relationship to science,” he said.
With previous generations who learned about both faith and science as part of a curriculum, that education “helped them a lot in dealing with these bigger questions,” he explained, “and not seeing conflict between religion and science.”
Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC, who worked in youth ministry for four years, emphasized that faith and science must be presented to young people in harmony with each other.
A challenge, he explained, is teaching how “faith and science relate” through philosophy and theology. While science deals only with “what is observable and measurable,” he said, “the world needs something non-physical as its origin, and that’s how to understand God along with science.”
“It was the Christian faith that was the birthplace of science,” he continued. “There’s not a contradiction” between faith and science, “but it’s understanding each one in their own realms.”
How can parents raise their children to stay in the faith? Fr. Schneider cited research by Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, who concluded that a combination of three factors produces an 80 percent retention rate among young Catholics.
If they have a “weekly activity” like catechesis, Bible study or youth group; if they have adults at the parish who are not their parents and who they can talk to about the faith; and if they have “deep spiritual experiences,” they have a much higher likelihood of remaining Catholic, Fr. Schneider said.
More parents need to be aware of their children’s’ beliefs, Dr. Gray noted, as many parents don’t even know that their children may not profess to be Catholic.
The Church is “very open” to science, he emphasized, noting the affiliation of non-Catholic scientists with the Pontifical Academy of Science, including physicist Stephen Hawking.
There is “no real conflict” between faith and science, Gray said.
“The Church has been steadily balancing matters of faith and reason since St. Augustine’s work in the fifth century,” he wrote.
“Yet, the Church has a chance to keep more of the young Catholics being baptized now if it can do more to correct the historical myths about the Church in regards to science,” he added, “and continue to highlight its support for the sciences, which were, for the most part, an initial product of the work done in Catholic universities hundreds of years ago.”
Re : Post #56 ~ And is there some reason you wish to expose the service of the altar to public scorn?
Wow! ~ THAT WAS NOT what I intended to suggest. Pardon me if I was unclear in my post...
Well; by the age of ten they know how to do searches on the 'net.
So they do.
Finding out OTHER things about your 'church' can have upsetting results.
Young Bereans: GOD bless them!
Light ten candles and say 20 Hail Marys...
It just sounded scornful of being an altar server.
But --- OK. I misspeak sometimes, too, and I benefit from being corrected.
Peace be with you, for sure.
>>God created the universe and everything in it, including all the scientific laws that scientists are discovering.<<
Yep — the more learn the more we learn there is so much more to learn.
In understanding science we get a tiny fragment of His awesomeness.
God not only created everything, He understands everything perfectly. That makes Him the best scientist and inventor, among other things, anywhere and everywhere.
I know lots of "Bereans" here. God bless them.
By the way, the death toll in the terrorist attack, is up to 14 now. I don't know how many injured, but I think it's around 60. Sad.
Et cum spiritu tuo.
I publicly and sincerely apologize for my carelessness/insensitivity ...
the catholic church promoted science, the more you understand science, the more you understand God. Pasteur prayed the rosary.
(they find the faith “incompatible with what they are learning in high school or at the university level.” )
Enough said. The brainwashing of kids is working for the liberals/atheists.
It would help if the Catholic Church taught from the Bible more, instead of these crazy traditions that are not in the Bible.
(they find the faith “incompatible with what they are learning in high school or at the university level.” )
Enough said. The brainwashing of kids is working for the liberals/atheists.
It would help if the Catholic Church taught from the Bible more, instead of these crazy traditions that are not in the Bible.
What a nasty person you must be.
But evidently it was #3 who said that Catholic kids "leave the faith" at age 10 because they think they'll be expected to be altar boys by age 11.
And maybe the post went on to something worse than that, because comments don't usually get pulled by the mods unless they're really offensive.
So, long story shot, *you* didn't say anything offensive, you were merely quoting (and criticizing) the guy at #3.
I am very sorry I accused you wrongly.
I apologize. I goofed.
The abashed
Mrs Don-o
Number one reason: unresolved sexual sins coincident with teenage rebellion and substance abuse; not unlike other faith communities
Latinae studium sit et latius.
Bonum nocte.
I’m not mad. But why are you posting a graven image? Oh, I forgot. Catholics made up their own commandments.
I wasn't driven away. I never belonged. And I'm not bitter. My mother tried to foist an abomination on me and I didn't fall for it. I moved on a long time ago and catholicism will never be a part of my life. In fact, everyone in my family rejected catholicism. Now that my mother is dead there isn't a single descendant of hers that is a catholic. Not one.
I did move on. That's why I'm not a catholic. And only a profoundly ignorant person would consider me a catholic forever. I suppose you believe that a person forced to convert to islam at the tip of a sword is forever a moslem. This is just one of the issues I have with catholicism. Zealots like you live in a sick, warped and twisted world of darkness. You're the one that needs help, not me. You need to see the light. I saw it a long time ago and moved forward.
Really? Because I didn't buy the party line and I moved on with my life? People with your way of thinking are really going to help out your lost cause.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.